giving it an extra half-star for having an attempt at interesting social commentary (the immense societal pressure that young people face for every aspect of their existence in modern japanese society, leading to the mental break of our main character) but that theme is examined much better in other works. so like, read those instead.

having our protagonist *start* with an established mindset is a bad choice, from a writing decision. if she's already convinced she's Different from Society then it's a lot less interesting to read. even when her mindset changes - she starts believing she's not just Magical, but actually An Alien - it happens during a timeskip. why? why not show that change?

what was the point of introducing Piyyut, the hedgehog plushie that is an alien? he "talks" to our protag in a single scene in the entire book and then is basically never mentioned again. his addition made the book worse.

the ending was dumb. no reason, from a thematic standpoint, to descend to the levels of shock-for-shock's-sake that it did. (i don't think it's particularly dark, just poorly written, and i didn't find it very visceral or disgusting like most of these other reviewers did, but, eh.)

i'm willing to blame most of these faults on the translator, because a lot of the writing, even the non-dialogue, was stiff, awkward, and i could clearly see where the translator was sticking too close to the original japanese